Highlander Home

(I think this is a great statement to begin our Crusade to reduce the Horses in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  I copied it from the Knox News Website.)

HEADLINE:
2,000 LB. Beasts Destroy 50% of National Park Trails...

I've hiked most of the trails in our GSMNP multiple times and since taking early retirement in 1997 I can be found recreating on one of those trails more often than anywhere else. Yes, I've watched as the boundary line developers approached/encroached. In case you missed it one of the most severe encroachments was by Don Sundquist who, while still our "great governor" (small case intentional), while building his retirement home on the park boundary, complained that the Ace Gap Trail was too close to his residence. Result: Ace Gap Trail was closed almost one year while the park service rerouted it to be significantly removed from its approach to the Don Sundquist property. Ironically someone has since cut a "private trail" from the Sundquist property to the new location of the Ace Gap Trail (wonder who?...). Why was this allowed to happen? Political favortism would be my bet.

An issue of even greater concern is the fact that herds of 2,000 lb. four-legged beasts are found much closer to parts of the park I hold near and dear than those private property owners who build around its perimeter. Boundary? Heck, the horses are right in the middle of the most beautiful sections of our national treasure. In case you've not hiked some of the more fragile trails recently let me warn you about the ones I've hiked that have been practically destroyed by horses:

1. The Appalachian Trail - especially the eastern portion.
2. Balsam Mountain Trail
3. Big Creek Trail
4. Bote Mtn Trail (again!)
5. Caldwell Fork
6. Cataloochee Divide Trail
7. Deep Creek Trail (rendered nearly totally impassable between Indian Creek and Pole Road Creek Trail)
8. Low Gap Trail
9. Lynn Camp Prong Trail (the 2nd worst condition in the Smokies)
10. McKee Branch Trail (absolutely the worst condition in the Smokies)
11. Middle Prong Trail
12. Mount Sterling Ridge Trail - a mile-high horse-cut bog swamp that rivals the bogs of Newfoundland
13. Initial (lower) part of Newton Bald Trail
14. Panther Creek Trail
15. Polls Gap Trail (now closed due to horse damage)
16. Pretty Hollow Gap Trail
17. Rough Fork Trail
18. Russell Field Trail
19. Turkeypen Ridge Trail

Unless you enjoy slogging thru mud bogs, stumbling over huge rock-strewn segments of trails and being forced completely off the trail by convoys of riders atop horses then I suggest you avoid the above list of trails--especially after a significant rain event and/or on weekends and holidays.

Why are riders on horses allowed to destroy the park trail system with impunity? Political favortism. I've seen the ruckus the horse riding clubs raise whenever someone suggests restricting their access to the park. They are quick to point out how much trail maintenance their memebers do in the park. Perhaps they are the same ones that ignore washed-out footbridges (horse riders ford the creeks), dig ditches and call them trails (Bote Mtn Trail's reconstruction), build boardwalks beside their horse-dug mud bogs (Cataloochee Divide Trail and some portions of Balsam Mtn Trail) and make liberal deposits of horse dung that significantly increase the problems with nuisance insects. Way to go horse riders of the Smokies. We need more of your kind of impact on our wilderness wonderland.

If you want to make a difference in the future quality of our park then make some noise and twist a few officials' arms while you talk about your concern for the continued destruction of our trails by riders on horses.

Until we get the horses off of our fragile trail system I'll let the boundary regions take care of themselves--after all those are the limits of the National Park property. The real menance to our park comes in by the trailer-loads and trample everything in their path while their riders shout "we were here first!"

Down with horses in the park. Now

Posted By Al Smith on the Knox News Website